The Philippian letter begins with Paul's statement,
"For to me to live is Christ", and then goes on
to express his ambition to know the Lord more and more,
with his determination to pursue that knowledge as a
coveted prize. If we desire to know what is meant by
gaining Christ we have to turn to Romans 8:29, where we
find that God's intention is that we should be conformed
to the image of His Son. This being conformed is gaining
Christ, this is the prize; it involves an attaining unto
the fullness of Christ in moral perfection, which is to
be the glory in which God's sons will be manifested. It
is simply this, that to come to be morally and
spiritually one with Christ in His place of exaltation is
the goal and prize of the Christian life. We do well to
keep in view this glorious end, "the manifestation
of the sons of God".

When Paul spoke of gaining Christ and of reaching out for
the prize, he was expressing his earnest longing to be
conformed to the image of God's Son. This is something
which is the issue of salvation, it is God's end in
salvation, but it is clearly something which needs to be
pursued. It is plain that we do not have to win
salvation, and we certainly do not have to suffer the
loss of all things to be saved. We are saved by faith,
not by works, salvation is not a prize to be won, not
something for which we must reach forward, but a present,
free gift. Beyond this, however, Paul still aspired to
heights as yet unreached, and he wrote that he counted
all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of
Christ Jesus his Lord. If the power of the same Spirit is
working in us, this will surely produce the same effect
of making us realise how little is the worth of
everything else compared with the great prize of Christ.

THE
SUPREME ISSUE

It is
interesting to compare Mark 10 with Philippians 3, as
each passage tells of a young man and his momentous
decision. The two men were very similar in many respects,
they were both rich rulers, men of high standing
socially, intellectually, morally and religiously among
their own people. They were probably both Pharisees, and
were both loved by the Lord. Of the one it had to be said
"One thing thou lackest", while the other could
affirm "One thing I do". The nameless young man
turned away from Christ; he did so sorrowfully but
nevertheless he did it, and the reason was that he was
not prepared to part with his great possessions. Paul had
great possessions also, but they lost all their
attractiveness in the light of the vision which he had of
Christ; to him it was the alternative of earthly prizes
or the one great heavenly prize, and he gladly made his
choice of the latter.

There is a sense in which we may say that he had a great
advantage and a different vision of Christ, for he saw
the Lord in the full power of resurrection. He not only
saw Jesus of Nazareth as the young ruler did, but he was
able to appreciate something of the exceeding greatness
of God's power in raising from the dead this One who,
despised and rejected of men, had on the cross been
reduced to helplessness and apparent despair only to be
lifted from death and the tomb and exalted to the right
hand of the majesty on high. It was resurrection power
which made Paul decide to pursue the prize.

THE
POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION

That which
makes everything possible in the spiritual life is the
fact that the same resurrection power which raised Christ
to His heavenly goal is the power that works in us
(Ephesians 3:20). While it is true that our justification
rests upon the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the whole
scope of that resurrection goes far beyond the realm of
personal salvation, for its power is the means whereby
all the realisation of God's eternal thought may be
accomplished. Probably one of the greatest needs of our
time - which I believe to be the end time - is for a
fuller experimental knowledge of resurrection life, for
the final triumph of the Church with its ultimate
breakthrough to the throne, with the consequent
dispossession of the satanic kingdom, can only be
achieved by this means. This life is something which has
met all the evil power of the universe, and proved that
it cannot be touched or corrupted, so that morally as
well as physically it is the life which has triumphed
over death.

Resurrection life is not some abstract idea or mystical
sensation, but it is a very practical expression of
victory over sin and Satan. If this life could be tainted
or corrupted then Satan would have won the ultimate
victory, but there is no fear of such a tragedy, for the
life of Christ is that which has fully and finally
conquered death; and inasmuch as His resurrection life
has placed Him in an unassailable position, "far
above all", it is destined to bring His Church
through to share His victory and His throne. So, in his
quest for the prize, Paul first mentions his need of
knowing "the power of His resurrection".

I believe that this attitude of Paul's tests our own
knowledge of Christ. I cannot understand how a Christian
who really knows the indwelling of the resurrection life
of Christ can hang on to things, having a controversy
with the Lord about the letting go of this and that, when
the alternative is full abandonment to Christ. What
should settle all disputes and questions is the
realisation of the royal nature of our high calling in
Christ, and the determination to let nothing stand
between us and the full outworking of His resurrection
life.

THE
FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS

Paul's
pursuit of the prize made him desire not only to know
Christ in the power of His resurrection, but also to be
ready to enter into suffering for and with Him. This puts
suffering in its right place, and relates it to a leading
on to glory. Very often suffering gets out of its place
with us, and so causes us trouble by being the thing
which pre-occupies us and blots out everything else. The
Lord would have us see suffering in its right place, that
is in relation to something which should make the
suffering very much smaller in our estimation than it
would otherwise be. "I reckon that the sufferings of
this present time are not worthy to be compared with the
glory which shall be revealed", that glory being the
glory of the children of God. It was this glory which
Paul described as the great prize of gaining Christ.

If we ask what it means to gain Christ we have to
consider Romans 8, where we find that God's intention is
that we should be conformed to the image of His Son. This
being conformed to Christ is really gaining Christ: this
is the prize. It involves an attaining unto the fullness
of Christ in moral perfection; for this moral and
spiritual perfection is His glory. So for us the simple
issue is that to come to be spiritually and morally where
Christ is in His place of exaltation is the goal, the
prize. We do well to keep in view this glorious end,
"the manifestation of the sons of God", when we
shall be revealed with Christ and made like to Him. For
the present we groan, and if we can truly analyse our
groanings we may discover that they represent our longing
for deliverance from the old creation life, with its
bondage to corruption, sin and death, so that we may know
moral perfection in Christ. One day the groanings will
cease, and that will be the moment of our arrival at
perfect conformity to Christ.

This is what God foreordained, for we notice that God's
work in a groaning creation is related to foreknowledge,
and therefore to His fore-ordination. Such predestination
was not connected with the simple matter of salvation,
but rather with the issue of salvation. This makes all
the difference. The issue of salvation is conformity to
the image of God's Son, for whom He foreknew He also
foreordained, not to be saved or lost but to be
"conformed to the image of His Son". The work
of the Spirit of His Son in us, constituting us as sons
and enabling us to cry "Abba, Father", is the
commencement of God's work in the groaning creation, the
work of securing in secret those sons who will provide
the key to its deliverance from the whole state of vanity
or disappointment which obtains at present. The whole
creation is to be delivered into the enjoyment of the
liberty of the glory of God's children, for this is to be
the issue of the power of resurrection working in us. We
are linked in our very sonship with the whole creation's
emancipation from the vanity imposed upon it. But note,
the creation is not only to be delivered at the time of
the manifestation, but is to take its character from
Christ revealed in the sons of God. It can only find its
true glory when the power of Christ's resurrection has
had full expression in the glorification of God's sons as
they receive their redeemed bodies, made like to His.

You may feel that this vast conception does not help you
very much when you come up against personal difficulties,
but it is for this very thing that Romans 8:28 links such
practical experiences with the whole range of God's
purpose in Christ. That calling and purpose govern every
detail of our spiritual history. If, of course, we take
things as purely personal incidents, then we cannot find
any good in them, whereas if we appreciate their relation
to God's determination to make us Christlike, then we
have the clue as to their meaning. This is more than
personal, inasmuch as the trial, difficulty, perplexity
or provocation holds the secret of developing in us the
life of the Lord Jesus, the resurrection life which
carries with it the ultimate issue of God, which is the
glorification of the whole universe. The New Testament is
very practical, the vast things of the eternities are
brought down into the most intimate details of our
spiritual life, so making all things work together. These
"all things" will be made to contribute to
ultimate good provided they are considered in the light
of divine purpose. God's meaning must not be missed. It
may seem that we suffer contradiction; we ask for one
thing and get just the opposite; but this is because God
is not relieving us of responsibility, but using the
contrary experiences to draw out and develop in us that
moral strength which only the Holy Spirit can provide.

CONFORMITY
TO HIS DEATH

It was the
Holy Spirit who made Paul write things in this order,
first the power of His resurrection, then the fellowship
of His sufferings, and finally the being made conformable
to His death, but in fact we can only know the power of
His resurrection by sharing with Him in this experience
of death which involves the setting aside of everything
that is personal in order to make the things of Christ
our only objective. Is it not true that the basic,
foundation sin is pride? And what is pride, this root
sin? Really it consists of personal interests, self will
and self seeking. This was how sin entered God's universe
at the beginning, for Satan fell when he said, "I
will exalt my throne.... I will be like the Most
High", and subsequently he persuaded Adam to grasp
at the opportunity of being "like God" (Genesis
3:5), so causing self interest to enter the human race.
Such pride is native to us all, and only a practical
experience of conformity to Christ in His death can
deliver us from it.

Satan's continual attempts to work on our self interest
are so subtle that he will even seem to patronise Christ
if he can do so in a way which will ensnare God's
servants. It was in Philippi, the city to which this
letter was directed, that one of his demons publicly
proclaimed that Paul was a servant of the most high God
who was showing men the way of salvation. What more could
Paul have wished for? Here was free publicity! Well, the
fact is that we may be sure that there is some subtle
plan of the devil when he begins to patronise the Gospel
and make its preachers popular. The apostle realised
this, and having waited on God he rebuked the demon, with
results which seemed calamitous for him and Silas, for it
brought them into prison with all hell raging against
them. Paul, however had been delivered from a satanic
trap even though he was in prison, and although for the
moment he was being conformed to Christ in a new
experience of His death, this inevitably brought him a
new experience of God's resurrection power. He lived to
write back to these Philippians from a prison in another
city, and was able to assure them once more that the
things which had happened to him had turned out for the
furtherance of the Gospel. When human ideas, preferences
and desires are set aside, it may involve deprivation for
the moment, but as self interest goes down into death
Christ is given a new place in our lives and we get
nearer and nearer to our great prize.

CHRIST
MAGNIFIED

It seems
clear that as the apostle moved towards the end of his
life he was pressing ever more eagerly towards the prize
of likeness to Christ. I believe that it is a point of
real advance when we come to the place where we can live
without the thrill of outward signs of success or obvious
miracles, and can be perfectly happy with the Lord
Himself. What I have in my heart is that you and I may
come more and more to the place where the Lord Jesus
Himself is everything to us. We do not seek even
conformity to Him for its own sake or for our
satisfaction, but only that He may find joy as we move
closer to Him. This is the mark of spiritual growth and
maturity, to desire only that Christ may be magnified,
and to press on resolutely to this objective.
"Christ is the path, and Christ the prize!"

First published in "Towards The Mark" magazine, Jan-Feb 1972, Vol 1-1.